The Loyalists of Prince Edward Island

The family of great grandmother Laura Jane Wright immigrated to America twice in 250 years. 

The first time was around 1635 from England to Lynn, Massachusetts.   The early Wrights migrated from Lynn to Sandwich on Cape Cod to Oyster Bay, Long Island, to Queens and Westchester, New York.  Future posts will look at this early history.

After the American Revolution, fifth great grandfather William F. Wright and his family, including fourth great grandfather Nathaniel Wright, were exiled by the new American government as Loyalists.  They eventually established themselves on Prince Edward Island which incentivized the settlement of Loyalists with land grants. A total of four generations of Wrights would live on the island before returning to America in the 1880s.

The genealogy of the Prince Edward Island Wrights is well-documented in genealogical sources including The Wrights of Bedeque, Prince Edward Island : a Loyalist Family by Doris Muncey Haslam, as well as The Island Register, a genealogical site devoted to Prince Edward Island, maintained by Dave Hunter.  Much of the following comes from these sources.

Click here to see the full Wright ancestry

(5GGP) William Wright was born about 1743 in Westchester County, NY, and died Feb 1819 in North Bedeque, P.E.I., Canada.  He was married to Hannah Dusenbury (1745-1796) in Queens in 1764.   They had six children, all born in Westchester.  As a Quaker, William was a pacifist, but he openly identified with the Loyalist cause and was imprisoned for twelve months.  All “Tories” were under sentence of banishment while their crops, livestock, food, clothing and personal property were liable to confiscation.    One daughter (unknown) married Solomon Dibble and settled in Westchester County or in nearby Connecticut while the rest of the family (two sons and three daughters) left.  In August 1783 they arrived at Port Roseway (Shelburne), Nova Scoita, where they stayed 10 months before moving to the Island of St. John (P.E.I.) with William Schurman.  On 29 July 1784 lots were allotted and William drew 500 acres in Lot 19 while his son Nathaniel drew 300 acres in Lot 26. William built a log cabin, thatched with seaweed and chinked with moss and mud.  A cooking fireplace stood in the centre and light came through a hole cut in the wall.  William was the first shoemaker in the area.

(4GGP) Nathaniel Wright was born 28 Mar 1765 in Westchester and died 25 Apr 1825 in Centreville Bedeque.  He married Ann Lord (1770-1839) on 25 Jun 1788, daughter of John Lord and Elizabeth Cottrel.  Nathaniel’s juvenile years were spent with his paternal grandfather, a Quaker. He was loyal to the crown as was his father. He was engaged in active service in the Loyalist militia, but came down with yellow fever and was so sick he was not expected to live and was unable to walk ashore in Shelburne. During their 10 months there, he fully recovered. He received a grant of 300 acres in Prince County, P.E.I. After his marriage, they moved to Tryon. On July 27, 1807, he moved his wife, six sons and daughter to Bedeque to settle on his Loyalist grant. He was a prosperous farmer. He built a grist mill and a carding mill was added in 1824.  Nathaniel and Ann had 11 children–8 sons and 3 daughters–between 1789 and 1817.  3GGP Lewis was the seventh of the eleven.

 (3GGP) Lewis Wright was born 1806 in Tryon, P.E.I., Canada, and died 14 Mar 1877 in Searletown, P.E.I., Canada.  He married Ann Sloane (1810-1842) on 16 Oct 1833.  He had a second marriage to Mary Black in 1843 after Ann’s early death.  Lewis and Ann had six sons and one daughter.  John Nelson Wright was the second child.

(2GGP) John Nelson Wright was born 03 Aug 1837 in Searletown, P.E.I., Canada, and died 21 May 1914 in Brooklyn.  He married Elizabeth (Eliza) Marshall on (1836-1918) on 14 Jul 1863.  Elizabeth’s parents were William Marshall and second wife Mary Gummersal.  William and his brother Thomas, whose ancestral home was “Ozendyke” (a corruption of Osmund’s oak mentioned in the Domesday Book), a farm or manor in Ryther, Yorkshire England, immigrated to P.E.I. in 1848 and settled in DeSable.  John and Eliza had a son (Lewis William) and five daughters (May,  Laura Jane, Ella Winnifred, Lucy, and Ada). 

John moved his family to Groton, CT between 1882 and 1885, he arriving first and sending for his family a year or two later. Laura, of course, married George Sechler in 1894 in Groton.  By 1895 John, Eliza, Laura, and Winnifred had moved to Brooklyn and would live there for many years, usually within blocks of each other They remained very close through and after the George Sechler tragedy. I will continue the story of the Wrights in a future post.